As Trump’s idiosyncratic approach to domestic and international politics unravels the US imperium, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s soft power is increasing proportionately. 

Whatever the denouement of the US-Israel war of aggression on the country, Iran’s amplified soft power will be its enduring legacy. 

What explains this? What all goes into and informs the matrix of Iran’s evolving soft power? How does it undercut Trump’s United States?

First, a note on ‘soft power’. 

Coined by the eminent Harvard professor, late Professor Joseph Nye, soft power means ‘the ability of a country or society to attract on account of its values, ideals, and cultural appeal that are seen as moral and legitimate’. 

This definition, a rough one, posits soft power in contradistinction to hard power, the military and coercive powers of states. 

Obiter dictum, it needs to be pointed out here that the Trump administration disavowed soft power in favour of a clearly hard power informed, militarized foreign policy. This was made clear in explicit terms in the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy document. 

Pared to its essence, the NSS 2025 postulated an ‘Imperial United States’ carved out through hard power and in terms of ‘spheres of influence’. 

The first ‘test case’ of this approach was Venezuela. Spurred by the success of the Venezuelan experience and egged on by meretricious advice from motivated advisers, Trump had Iran in his crosshairs.

Long a sore sticking point for the US and Israel in........

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